The grandparents return!

To pass the time while we waited for them to arrive at any minute, Sammy and Susanna made this sign, using drinking straws. Grandma prefers to drink her daily can of decaf diet Coke with a straw....

This week, we enjoyed several full, fun days with Grandpa Richard and Grandma Jemelie. We always appreciate their cross-country treks to visit and hug everyone.

This year was their first time meeting Joshie in person, who got his first major facial injury hours before their arrival. He pulled himself up using a stepstool, which fell backwards onto his little lumpy (head). His cut is healing nicely now, and when sympathetic folks sympathize with his owie, we say, "You shoulda seen the stepstool!"


Here he is with Grandma. He prefers we only photograph his good side.


Grandpa hits the backyard trail with Sammy (6) and Gideon (4). Gideon prefaces most of his statements with, "I need to tell you something..."


We were blessed with wonderful, cool weather during most of the week and no rain. Though our property backs up to a huge wetland area, mosquitos have been pretty light lately, probably due to the dry weather. After her bumpy experience feeding our mosquitos last summer, Grandma was packing extra protection, however, with this cool device clipped on her back. It blows a constant stream of repellent into the air around the wearer, and she says is really worked well.


Still showing up stacks of index cards for the children to use for drawing, Grandpa's fancy new high tech gift for the children this year was: rope. It was a big hit, and made for hours of entanglement, tripping, tree-climbing, follow-the-leader, and greatly increased the time it took to get everyone seated at the table.


Grandma's grand finale was walking the girls through a repeat performance of her world famous cabbage rolls and banana cream pudding pie, saying, "They did everything themselves."


Cabbage rolls (beef, brown rice, tomato soup, onion soup mix, chopped onion) with tomatoes and cucumbers and rolls on the side....mmmm good!

A new activity for this year's visit was a few rounds of Klein on Klein volleyball. Apparently stuffing all those cabbage rolls has given Grandma quite a good return hit on the court! She taught us a thing or two. Coupled with Dave's high-speed, earth-bound serves, the Kleins won... and lost ... repeatedly. It was very fun!

Grandma and Grandpa are off now to spread more love and cheer to our little cousins to the south.